Mirror
by SoloWolf
Summary: Act Three scene one: perspectives on a tragedy. So far Benvolio and Mercutio's POV: will soon have Romeo's and Tybalt's. Rated for blood and character death.
1. Reflections

The wind whipped up the dust in the empty square into miniature whirlwinds, spiralling lazily around the debris of another busy Verona day. He was the only person here now, he and the ghosts of the past, meeting once again.

He always came here at the end of the day's hustle and bustle, just to be alone with his thoughts. He'd done so every evening since that fateful week, when his world had fallen apart, when his two best friends had quit this mortal sphere for the clouds above.

There, there was the spot. The rust-red-black stain on the stone steps, faded over time. It had been crimson once, fresh and liquid, his friend's life-blood pouring from his body. He remembered that – holding Mercutio's head as he gasped out his last words, a curse which had come to fruit all too soon. He remembered………..

"I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire: the day is hot, the Capels are abroad,  
and, if we meet, we shall not 'scape a brawl; for now, in these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."

Benvolio looked about the square warily. He was tired, in no mood for fighting, and would much rather return to the shaded gardens of the Montague's house than prowl the hot dusty streets with the threat of a Capulet challenge hanging over his head.

However, Mercutio seemed to revel in the tense atmosphere, and was resisting all his friend's efforts to persuade him to depart. The older boy was now perched on a convenient ledge, one hand on the stone to steady himself and the other raised in a declamatory fashion. He grinned at Benvolio, and rolled his eyes.

"Thou art like one of those fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says 'God send me no need of thee!' and, by the operation of the second cup, draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need."  
"Am _I_ like such a fellow?" Benvolio asked. He thought the description fitted Mercutio far more accurately than it did him – his witty friend was apt to quarrel about the smallest of things.  
"Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved," Mercutio retorted, hopping down from his ledge and throwing an affectionate arm around the other boy's shoulders. Benvolio smiled, and decided to play along. "And what to?" he asked.  
"Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other." The brown-eyed boy groaned with mock annoyance at Mercutio's wordplay, and relaxed, letting his friend's speech wash over him. He'd been subjected to this theme before, and he knew that Mercutio was able to go on in the same vein for fully half an hour, stating the same points over and over, but wrapping each one in new jokes and quibbles. He let his mind wander, pondering over the events of the past few days. Where _had _Romeo been that night? What was the cause of his sudden good humour? Perhaps he'd finally…

"…..and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling! Hah!" Mercutio let go of Benvolio, and sprang back onto the ledge again, where he settled himself in what looked to the other boy like an incredibly uncomfortable position – lying on his shoulder blades with his legs and back on the wall, and his head hanging down over the edge of the stonework.  
"An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter." Benvolio joked, but he did have a serious point. Mercutio was notoriously hot-headed, and the younger boy did sometimes fear for his friend's safety.  
However, Mercutio seemed not to pick up on the reproach. "The fee-simple! O simple!" he laughed, twisting his face into a grimace that would have made a gargoyle blink. The effect was doubled by the fact that his head was upside down, due to his unusual position, and Benvolio almost had to look away. He did turn his head somewhat, only to notice a purposeful-looking band of young men rounding the corner into the square_. Capulets_. This was not good.  
"By my head, here come the Capulets!" he exclaimed, trying to alert Mercutio to the approaching threat.  
"By my heel, I care not," the other replied, kicking his legs back against the wall in a movement that rolled his body off the ledge and left him standing upright next to Benvolio. He brushed some dust off his sleeve with a nonchalant air, smirking at the approaching Capulets in a supremely irritating fashion.

"Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you," Tybalt, who seemed to be the leader of the gang, remarked. His tone was civil, and Benvolio found himself hoping that a confrontation could be avoided.

Mercutio, on the other hand, appeared to be disappointed by this salutation, and Benvolio could see that the older youth was not going to be brushed aside that easily.  
"And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow," he challenged, his hand resting on the pommel of his rapier in a way that made it quite clear he was itching to use it.  
"You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion," replied Tybalt, obviously irked.  
"Could you not take some occasion without giving?" Mercutio riposted. Benvolio repressed the urge to roll his eyes. Why had he ever supposed that this meeting would end amicably?  
"Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo-" Tybalt began, but the words had scarce left his mouth before Mercutio was arguing once again.  
"Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance.

Zounds, consort!"

Benvolio put a calming hand on his friend's shoulder, fearing that Mercutio's hot temper would provoke Tybalt to a fight. That would not be a good move. Tybalt was practically the best swordsman in Verona, and, though Mercutio was probably just as good, he had a tendency to joke around whilst fighting. Tybalt, on the other hand, was deadly serious, which would mean he would concentrate more on the duel. And Tybalt _would_ fight to wound, or kill.

This could turn out _very _nasty.

"We talk here in the public haunt of men: Either withdraw unto some private place,  
and reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart. Here all eyes gaze on us," Benvolio reasoned, trying to stop this argument before the two could come to blows.

"Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze; I'll budge for no man's pleasure, I." Mercutio looked over at Tybalt, his lip curling in a cold sneer of defiance.

Benvolio sighed inwardly. Why didn't Mercutio ever back down from a challenge? Surely he could see that it would do no harm to refuse to fight, just once? But he knew that his hot-tempered friend would never do anything so…well…rational.

He awoke from the reverie he'd unconsciously sunk into, to the sound of more raised voices. Tybalt and Mercutio were now….._fighting!_? He looked around, seeing Romeo running towards the combatants. Where had _he_ come from? But there was no time to worry about that now. The fight looked serious, and, if he'd read Romeo's expression rightly, his friend was about to do something very stupid.

"Draw, Benvolio! Beat down their weapons!" Romeo yelled, pushing himself between the two youths. Benvolio heard Mercutio hiss something at Romeo for blocking his sword-arm, saw Tybalt smile slyly and lunge forward, saw the smile change to an expression of shocked horror, saw Mercutio cry out and stumble backwards…

Benvolio ran to his friends, his heart thumping in his chest with anxiety. He arrived by them just in time to hear Mercutio ask "Is he gone and hath nothing?"

"What, art thou hurt?" he asked, not wanting to believe the evidence of his own eyes. There was a spreading stain of red across the older boy's white shirt, and his face was slowly turning blue-white.

"Aye, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough! Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon."

As the servant scurried off, Romeo leant over his friend. "Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much," he said, trying to keep up his own spirits as much as Mercutio's.

"No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door"

Benvolio smiled with relief, a feeling that was shattered by the next words his friend uttered.

"But 'tis enough…'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world."

That shocked him, shocked them both. Surely their lively, laughter-loving friend was not dying?

"A plague o' both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death!" A fit of coughing overcame him, but he swallowed and went on." A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm."

"I thought all for the best," Romeo answered, through the tears that choked his voice

"Help me into some house, Benvolio, or I shall faint," gasped Mercutio, his voice weakening. "A plague o' both your houses!" He coughed again, blood bubbling in his throat, his face already assuming the waxy pallor of the dead. "They have made worms' meat of me: I have it, and soundly too: your houses!" His head fell back, a trickle of blood snaking from his mouth.

Benvolio bent over his best friend's body, checking the pulse. Nothing. He checked again, panic rising in his throat. Still nothing. He turned to Romeo, his face streaked with tears…..

Yes, he remembered. All too clearly. There was no way to wash the memories away, but maybe it didn't hurt to remember sometimes.

The sun set behind the hills to the west, its red rays shining down on a lone figure, sitting crying on the steps of the empty square…


	2. Refractions

**RAGE AND REFRACTIONS**

"I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire: the day is hot, the Capels are abroad, and, if we meet, we shall not 'scape a brawl; for now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."  
Mercutio leant back against the sun-warmed stone wall, grinning at his cautious friend's words. Benvolio was a good fellow, but his peaceable disposition was something Mercutio could never understand. What good was life if you didn't have a little danger now or then? He raised a hand as if about to make a speech, looked at the younger boy and rolled his eyes.  
"Thou art like one of those fellows," he began, with a serious air, "that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need."  
"Am _I_ like such a fellow?" Benvolio replied, with an obvious inflection in his tone that suggested he thought Mercutio's description best fitting to the older boy himself. Mercutio brushed it aside. He knew that he was quarrelsome, and liked it that way, but he was enjoying teasing his friend.  
"Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved," he insisted, leaping from his perch and throwing his arm around Benvolio's shoulders in a friendly gesture that nearly knocked the other boy over.  
"And what to?" asked Benvolio jokingly.  
Mercutio grinned again, and clicked his fingers "Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other." He paused for a moment, and then continued in a more lecturing tone. "Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less in his beard than thou hast: thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what  
eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?" He noticed that Benvolio was not really paying any attention, but he was in full flow, and wasn't about to stop just because he had lost his audience. "Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling! Hah!"

He let go of Benvolio and jumped back onto his ledge, where he settled himself in a nicely comfortable position – lying on his shoulder blades with his legs and his lower back resting on the stonework and his head hanging over the edge of the ledge. He looked at the younger boy from his upside down pose, wondering idly what the world would be like if the ground and sky were reversed, and everybody walked upside down. He often wondered about things like that – he supposed it was his fertile imagination at work.  
Benvolio broke through his friend's thoughts, pulling Mercutio out of his daydream. "An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter."  
Mercutio laughed. "The fee-simple! O simple!" he joked, and proceeded to make the most alarming faces he could, feeling a slight satisfaction when Benvolio blanched and turned away somewhat. Mercutio prided himself on his ability to twist his visage into grotesque masks, and had once made one of the maids in the Montague house faint by leaping out from behind a door and pulling the most horrific face he could manage. The girl had screamed, and collapsed, and the entire household had come running. Of course by the time they got there Mercutio was looking perfectly normal again, and he had spun a very convincing yarn about the maid thinking she had seen a ghost. No-one apart from Mercutio, Romeo and Benvolio had ever known the real reason for the incident.  
"By my head, here come the Capulets!" exclaimed Benvolio. Mercutio twisted his head, looking around for the approaching threat. He spotted the gang of Capulets rounding the corner into the square, Tybalt swaggering at their head. Ah-ha! This could bring a bit of excitement to an otherwise dull day.  
"By my heel, _I_ care not." he replied, bending his legs and kicking the soles of his feet against the wall. The momentum propelled his lower body over his shoulders, and he rolled off the ledge, landing on his feet next to Benvolio. The other boy looked slightly startled, but he was used to his friend's bizarre actions, and said nothing. Mercutio brushed some dust from his shirt-sleeve and smirked at the Capulets in a way he knew would irritate them intensely. He was looking for a fight, and he knew that provoking Tybalt would be the best way of starting one.  
Tybalt didn't seem to notice Mercutio's actions, but addressed both Montague youths civilly enough. "Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you."  
Mercutio glared at the Capulet, striding forward until his face was inches from Tybalt's. "And but one word with one of us?" he challenged, tapping his fingers on the pommel of his rapier. "Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow."  
"You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion." hissed Tybalt, gripping hold of the hilt of his own rapier.  
"Could you not take some occasion without giving?" Mercutio riposted. This was what he had been hoping to do – he had riled Tybalt with only two sentences.  
Tybalt growled, but he looked as if he was trying to keep his temper in check "Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo-"  
Mercutio interrupted, his face flushing a dark, angry red under his tan. "Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. 'Zounds, consort!"  
Benvolio put a hand on Mercutio's shoulder. "We talk here in the public haunt of men: either withdraw unto some private place, and reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us," he suggested in a calm tone of voice.

Mercutio shook his friend's hand off. He was in no mood for reason at the moment, and he was enjoying the conflict. "Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;  
I'll budge for no man's pleasure, I," he snarled.

"Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man," Tybalt remarked, turning his attention towards Romeo, who had just entered the square. But Mercutio wasn't prepared to give up quite that easily.  
"But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery" he snapped "marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower; your worship in _that_ sense may call him 'man.'"  
However, Tybalt was only interested in the new arrival. "Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford no better term than this - thou art a villain."

Mercutio clenched his fists. A _villain_! That was the worst insult a gentleman could possibly be subjected to. Romeo _had_ to respond.  
And respond he did, though not in the way Mercutio had expected.  
"Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage  
to such a greeting: villain am I none; therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not."

Mercutio hissed in surprise and rage. What was Romeo doing? Was he just going to let Tybalt insult him to his heart's content?

Apparently Tybalt was having the same idea. "Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries  
that thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw," he challenged  
"I do protest, I never injured thee, but love thee better than thou canst devise,  
till thou shalt know the reason of my love: and so, good Capulet - which name I tender as dearly as my own - be satisfied." Romeo replied, turning to go.

Mercutio couldn't believe his ears. Romeo saying that he _loved_ Tybalt? Romeo refusing to fight? He couldn't let the insults applied to his friend go unpunished, even if said friend was acting in an decidedly unusual manner. "O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!" he growled "Alla stoccata carries it away!" He drew his rapier, waving the point dangerously close to Tybalt's startled face. "Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"  
"What wouldst thou have with me?" Tybalt asked, sounding more surprised than annoyed.  
Mercutio smiled slyly. "Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out!" He flourished his rapier, cutting through the air so close to Tybalt's ears that the Capulet flinched.  
"I am for you!" Tybalt drew his own rapier, and the two squared off, circling warily.  
"Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up," Romeo interjected, trying to pull his friend away. Mercutio elbowed Romeo in the stomach, and continued to taunt Tybalt.  
"Come, sir, your passado," he said, flicking his blade up to tap the tip of Tybalt's rapier. Tybalt beat the other youth's sword away, and the two closed, their rapiers glinting in the harsh afternoon sun as they fought.  
"Draw, Benvolio! Beat down their weapons!" Romeo yelled, pushing himself between the two duellists. "Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage! Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath forbid this bandying in Verona streets: hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!" Romeo stepped in front of his friend, trying unsuccessfully to stop the brawl. Mercutio swore vehemently under his breath. He was in the worst possible position – not only could he not get his sword arm free, but he couldn't see what Tybalt was doing. For all he knew, the Capulet could be just about to-

Mercutio cried out and staggered back, looking down with shock at the blood spreading over his white shirt. He couldn't take it in. He'd….Tybalt…he… He dropped to his knees as the pain stabbed through his gut. "I am hurt," he murmured in incredulous, fascinated horror. Then, with mounting anger at Tybalt, at Romeo, at the entirety of the damned houses of Capulet and Montague: "A plague o' both your houses!" The curse ripped from his lips with the force of his agony behind it, and, looking at Romeo's shocked face, he wished he could unsay it. But it was out now, and the words seemed to hang in the air, a premonition of disaster. " I am sped," he continued, in a quieter tone. "Is he gone, and hath nothing?  
Benvolio's face swam into his vision, the younger boy's open, honest features creased with worry. "What, art thou hurt?"

Mercutio normally would have riposted with a sarcastic comment to such an obvious question, but at that moment he couldn't bring any of his normal wit to bear on the situation. But still he was determined to make light of it. "Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch," he joked, before another slash of pain sliced through his chest, making him gasp. "Marry, 'tis enough! Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon."

The servant scurried off, his boots kicking up the dust from the ground so that it hung in pale clouds in the sultry air. Mercutio smiled slightly, watching the dirt settle. He'd never thought dust a beautiful thing before, but looking at it now, it seemed almost like the mist of some undiscovered country, some land beyond mortal ken…. He blinked, realising that he'd been drifting off again. Not a good idea. In his present state, he might never return from any daydream he entered into.  
"Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much," Romeo whispered, but looking at his face, Mercutio knew the real truth.

Not that he hadn't known before, ever since Tybalt's sharp blade had pierced his skin, but to know that his friend knew too, that made it the more real. But he was determined to go out fighting, not to lie back and accept the thread the Fates had spun for him. "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door." He saw Benvolio smile with obvious relief, and sighed inwardly. He didn't want to get his friend's spirits up unduly. "But 'tis enough… 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man." He was proud of that – a jest in the teeth of death, a refusal to succumb to the darkness he could almost see closing in on him. "I am peppered, I warrant, for this world," he continued, before another stab of pain made his breath catch in his throat. He was dying, and for what? For a feud he should not have been involved in? For someone else's quarrel? "A plague o' both your houses!" he snarled, with all the acidity he could muster in his voice. "'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death!" He breathed in, and a fit of coughing overcame him, air he badly needed hissing from between clenched teeth as he fought to fill his lungs again. Finally the coughing subsided, and he was able to draw breath again. He swallowed, and went on. "A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!" He turned his eyes on Romeo, watching with bitter satisfaction as the other boy looked away, unable to meet his gaze. "Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm."  
"I thought all for the best," Romeo answered, his voice thick with tears. Mercutio turned away, hunching his body in on itself to try and somehow contain the pain that was spreading through every nerve, through the entirety of his being. The pain of his wound, and the pain of his betrayal, his friend-caused death.  
"Help me into some house, Benvolio," he gasped, "or I shall faint." His voice was growing weaker, and the world was blurring around him, the colours suddenly so much more vivid. He was dying - he knew it truly now. And it was the Capulets and the Montagues who had brought him to this pass. "A plague o' both your houses!" he spat, with the last remnants of the vigour that had characterised him whilst he lived. He coughed again, hearing with a strange detachment his own blood bubbling in his throat. He could taste the metallic liquid in his mouth, and he fought to get his words out around it. "They have made worms' meat of me: I have it, and soundly too: your houses!"

The last words were scarce out of his mouth when the dark which he had been fighting off for so long claimed him at last. His vision clouded over, and he could feel his body relaxing, giving up the struggle. He thought perhaps this was better than the pain. He thought… and then there were no more thoughts.


End file.
